Saturday morning before more tuning I threw a limit strap under the driveshaft, which you can barely see in the below photo. I had been on the fence about doing it since I think the transmission side will be fine, but the wife really wanted it and it is a good idea. There's not a good place to put it, plus I didn't have any straps that were the right length, so I ended up psuedo-ghettoing it and just welding some studs to the frame and then taking two straps and twisting them (an offroading trick to shorten them) and that got them tight enough to not drag on the ground. I'd like a better setup to keep the shaft from destroying everything, but ultimately this is to prevent it pogo sticking the back of the truck and without adding another crossmember there's not really a sexier way to do this, so I'll keep it as is I think (and probably buy a correct length limit strap).
At 9am we did a bit more tuning, but the truck was so insanely loud with the exhaust dumping under the cab we couldn't do much since dude couldn't even hear me on the phone. Of course, the exhaust tubing showed up a couple hours later so I was able to make the truck not sound so loud (at least in the cab).
I drove around some more playing with the truck, and she is properly nasty! The truck seems to spin a bit in 2nd gear, but it's very controllable with the new tires. Before the truck would kind of torque steer all over the place, and now it shoots really straight when you get on it. Tires made so much difference and made it so much easier to drive which I wasn't expecting. The steering feels the same too, I was worried the increased scrub radius would make it a bitch to turn but didn't seem to really affect it.
The tuning needs a bit more work. At this point I'm thinking I'll wrap up the rest of the tuning myself, I got everything I wanted out of the tuner (mainly a good timing map). The last two things the tune really needs at this stage is there's still some boost control issues. Earlier in the week I had set it up where there was just a fixed boost solenoid duty cycle based on MAP and RPM, and the tuner changed that to a boost target and rpm based table, which seemed to be working fine at WOT but I've had a couple times where in like 4th gear I'll get on it and by 4300rpm the boost cut at 23psi is triggered, so how the turbo is building boost at high load and lower rpm is a lot different than at WOT, so that needs to get sorted. And then there's also a slight hiccup sometimes at low rpm, like leaving from a stop where if the rpm drops below idle for a second it seems to have a half second hiccup until it recovers. Not sure what the deal is there, I'm thinking it might be related to the low timing at idle and the truck using timing to control the idle rpm. Besides that though, the truck runs and drives awesome.
There was a little car meet in town on Saturday so I swung by since the weather was actually nice for once and the wife was doing things. There ended up being another 1978 model there too, though mostly stock!
His was a RN23L, I figured the L stood for long bed but his was a short bed and the same year, so the difference between the RN23L and RN28L is at a minimum the bed length. Not sure how the numbering works, I figured the lower the number the older the truck but maybe the second digit is the overall length or something? It was cool to finally meet the guy and look up close to the sister truck I've seen in town.
On the way home, of course I end up being the only vehicle on the road, I have no working speedometer and a cop is behind me. Who knows how slow I'm going since I have no traffic to base speed off of. Was probably doing 10mph under the speed limit. Dude eventually goes to pull around me, and then instantly jumps back over behind me and lights on. Awesome.
Turns out the right side running light at that instant in time decided the bulb was no more. Dude was following me, decided I was fine, and then the running light blows right as he goes to pull around me and that was too much so he pulls me over. Of course, no bumpers, the "tires stick out too far without mud flaps", and no running light. And I'm sitting there in a mini truck with a rear cage, fuel cell, drag radials, side dump exhaust, with a laptop on in my passenger seat and I'm wearing pajamas hahaha
Dude takes my stuff, comes back and thankfully gives me a warning and not a fix it ticket, and then he leans over and goes "so does it actually have a 2JZ?"
I'm like damn straight, want to see it?
And end up giving him a full tour of the truck. I think he's the first person to ever read the license plate "2JZ HLX" and actually know what it meant. We talked for a bit and I told him I have all the bumpers and stuff and still getting it dialed in since it has a fresh engine in it. He eventually had to bail since he had a ride along with him hahaha. Overall a nice wholesome moment, went from playing with the truck all day, to going wow the day ends getting a ticket, to ending up with the cop being a car guy and appreciating the truck build and letting me off.
To wrap everything up, I've been wanting to weigh the truck and yesterday got around to it. Threw some chains and my crane scale on the lift and pulled it up.
Because the front is lifting off the frame and not the axle, need to do a bit of statics and the overall weight comes in at
2545 lbs! 1046 lbs over the rear axle, and about 1500 lbs over the front axle.
Trying to find a weight for a stock truck, on a mini truck forum one person says a stock truck is around 2500 lbs, another guy actually coincidentally says the truck weighs 2545 lbs too. I thought it'd weigh quite a bit less to be honest, but at least I can say it weighs the same as a stock truck. And 2500 lbs with 500hp or so is still no slouch!
